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Problem of evil
The problem of Evil in our world
How many problems of evil are there
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It seems that every day, something occurs in the world that would be construed as evil. You are able to come across it through social media, newspaper, and television and sometimes it makes you question why. Why do bad things happen to good people? Why does God allow it? In this paper we will be exploring the problem of the evil in the world and theodicy.
If God is all powerful, and all knowing, and all good, how can that God allow evil to exist and for bad things to happen to good people? When questions like these arise, we turn to theodicy. Theodicy in essence means the defending of God’s good will in the existence of evil. It also may help provide plausible explanations as to why God allows evil to exist. In the Harvard Theological Review, it explains that theodicy is done so that the theologian can find out what God reveals to man about the pain and suffering that exist in his creation (Surin, 1983).
Many religions have their own traditions and responses when it comes to answering the question of why there is evil in the world. In regards to the Judaism, Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Islamic religions, they hold four classic responses about the problem of evil in the world. The responses we will be looking at will be Karma, The Consolation of Promise, The Appeal to Sovereignty, and Dualism. These responses will give us
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For instance, Judaism believes that the Messiah has yet to come, while Christianity believes that Jesus lived, was killed for us, then resurrected, and will return to judge the living and the dead (Cunningham, 2013, p.108). This is better known as the second coming of Jesus Christ. For the Islamic religion, they believe that the Mahdi, or the rightly guided one, will come and show himself when the time is right. All religions hold the same belief that the good people on earth will be rewarded in the afterlife, while those who are evil will be
The problem of evil is a difficult objection to contend with for theists. Indeed, major crises of faith can occur after observing or experiencing the wide variety and depths of suffering in the world. It also stands that these “evils” of suffering call into question the existence of an omnibenevolent and omnipotent God of the Judeo-Christian tradition. The “greater good defense” tries to account for some of the issues presented, but still has flaws of its own.
The problem of reconciling an omnipotent, perfectly just, perfectly benevolent god with a world full of evil and suffering has plagued believers since the beginning of religious thought. Atheists often site this paradox in order to demonstrate that such a god cannot exist and, therefore, that theism is an invalid position. Theodicy is a branch of philosophy that seeks to defend religion by reconciling the supposed existence of an omnipotent, perfectly just God with the presence of evil and suffering in the world. In fact, the word “theodicy” consists of the Greek words “theos,” or God, and “dike,” or justice (Knox 1981, 1). Thus, theodicy seeks to find a sense of divine justice in a world filled with suffering.
There is so much evil in the world such as: murder, child mortality, torture, rape, assault and more. So how can there be an all loving God if these things are constantly happening? In this paper, I will be arguing that there is in fact no such thing as an all loving and all powerful God due to Evil. When I think of an all-loving God, I think of God as someone who would never allow a child to be kidnapped, raped, tortured and killed. I think of God as someone who would not allow anything bad or evil to happen in this world.
In order to understand The Problem of Evil, we must first understand the concept of God. The God that this problem addresses is what we call a PKM god. This god is accepted in multiple religions, such as Christianity, Islam, and Judaism. Over half of the world population claims to be followers of any of
Our world is, and always will be, infested with evil. Many people would like to believe that there is a balance between good and evil; however, good people can be seduced to the evil side of life, and it is important to analyze why they would want to go to that side in the first place. In The Lucifer Effect, published in 2007, author Philip Zimbardo defines evil as the “exercise of power to intentionally harm people psychologically, to hurt people physically, to destroy people morally and to commit crimes against humanity”. The Lucifer Effect establishes the fundamental question about the essence of human nature: How is it possible for ordinary, average, even good people become perpetrators of evil? While trying to understand unusual or bizarre
“God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks to us in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: It is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world” (Lewis, 1994, p. 91). Throughout history man has had to struggle with the problem of evil. It is one of the greatest problems of the world. Unquestionably, there is no greater challenge to man’s faith then the existence of evil and a suffering world. The problem can be stated simply: If God is an all-knowing and all-loving God, how can He allow evil? If God is so good, how can He allow such bad things to happen?Why does He allow bad things to happen to good people? These are fundamental questions that many Christians and non-Christians set out to answer.
Judaism and Islam are known to be two of the main religions that are found throughout the world. They each have similar traits and many more differences. They both are monotheistic, which means they only believe in one god. Muslims worship the God called Allah, which means in Arabic “the God”. And Jews worship the god called Yahweh, which means the God of Israel. Their differences include their core beliefs, rituals, symbols, and history.
For years a common area of discussion among thinkers and philosophers in regards to religious is that of the traditional idea of God. If the traditional idea of God is true then how can evil exist. The existence of evil challenges this idea because if God knows about the suffering and would stop it but can not stop it that would imply God is not omnipotent or all powerful. If God is able to stop the suffering and would want to but does not know about it that would imply God is not omniscient or all knowing. If God knows about the suffering and is able to stop it but does not wish to assuage the pain that
Every religion has its own goal, and their own path and believe to reach their goals, however there are also many similarities in believes. Although the followers of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam may see things differently, they all fundamentally hold the same values and codes. To Islam, the Prophet Mohammad’s teaching is a complete and final revelation. On the other hand, according to the bible, Christianity believes that Jesus Christ is the true lord and savior will grant you the access to heaven in the afterlife. Judaism is founded by Abraham, and it is the base from which both of the other two religions sprung. Even though the three religions differ in many areas and on many aspects, they also agree on the monotheistic, the belief in ‘One True God.’ Those religions have many similarities and a number of significant differences about God, role of women, prayer, and salvation.
In light of this, it can be seen that evil does not seem to vanish as it is. It controls or takes dominance over innocence and eventually destroys it. It is said again time after time that humans are unable to be regarded as purely good. As a result, “no amount of good deeds can overcome evil” (Ellens 234). Ellens further concluded that “the answer to evil from a biblical philosophical point of view is faith” (234).
“ It does not claim to explain, nor to explain away, every instance of evil in human experience, but only to point to certain considerations that prevent the fact of evil from constituting a final and insuperable bar to rational belief in God”(Cahn 117). One of the major theodicies is brought up by St. Augustine in which he tries to explain how evil came about. He believes the world was created perfect and harmonious but abuse of freedom caused evil to come into the world. This abuse lead to both moral and natural evil’s existence in the world. Evil is seen as God’s punishment to man.
Less than one hundred years ago, several million innocent Europeans lost their lives in gas chambers and by other – and usually more violent – means. In Africa, genocide continues to plague the continent. Every single day, parents use violence against their innocent children. These and countless other heinous acts have plagued Earth since the very beginning of human existence. The horrors of the world cause people to question the existence of any sort of God. One religious skeptic may ask, “How can evil exist if there is a God?” It seems doubtless that an ultimate good – such as God – can exist in an atmosphere filled with murder, abuse, violence, and rage. Evil, however, is the consequence of the freedom that God granted man. The horrors that occur around us occur because God allows us to make our own choices.
Theodicy is a branch of philosophy that attempts to solve the issue of evil with ideas of philosophy. The problem with Theodicy is that there is evil present in the world and
When we hear any headlines on the news of tragedies and war going on in the world, we look on with a puzzling question in the back of our minds, ‘why is this horrible event happening to so many innocent people’. Even more so, we may ask why God is allowing this to happen. I have personally never experienced anything tragic to ask God why he allowed this to happen, aside from minor hardships or obstacles being put in my way. So, my reasoning is going to have to be from an outsider point of view. From all the articles and book about the problem of evil or why god allows bad things to happen to good people, there is one common response, no one can explain this reasoning.
The society we live in today has had the very concepts of good and evil gelled to that from much of mythology, in which they were based on the gods and their archenemies, the demons. With this concept, many others follow, forming the broad basis on which ideal characteristics of human beings today are built on. (Side, Corrie et al.).